


miraculously my own

by 26stars



Series: Time Traveler's Wife AU [3]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Christmas Fluff, Christmas fic, F/F, Family Fluff, Halleyverse, Lots of side characters and their kids referenced, May teaching everyone to ice-skate, Post-canon family fluff, Second Gen SHIELD family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:00:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28451289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/26stars/pseuds/26stars
Summary: It's May's first Christmas with Halley, but also her first proper Christmas with Daisy. Daisy wants to give her a gift and a question she's been meaning to ask, but little do they know, Halley has an important gift for May too.For Ness and my Marvel Fluff Bingo square 'child and parent watching parent'
Relationships: Melinda May/Skye | Daisy Johnson
Series: Time Traveler's Wife AU [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1271816
Comments: 16
Kudos: 25
Collections: Marvel Fluff Bingo, Women of the MCU





	miraculously my own

**Author's Note:**

  * For [agentmmayy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/agentmmayy/gifts).



> Takes place in my Time Traveler's Wife AU, could maybe be read without but definitely contains major spoilers for it.
> 
> Ness, you prompted this nearly a year ago, and I thank you so much for not disowning me while you waited. Thanks for loving on this verse with me!
> 
> Happy New Year everyone, and to 2020: good riddance.

“Not like that, Andrea. With one foot.” Halley pushes away from the wall, showing the other girl the correct method.

“That’s not how Aunt May did it,” Andrea says, crossing her arms and only wobbling a little on her skates as she does so.

“Aunt May is taller,” Halley points out. “She doesn’t remember how it feels to be this little. Try it my way.”

Andrea pushes off across the ice again, executes a smooth turn the way Halley showed her. When she looks up grinning, Halley smiles proudly.

“Told you so.”

May, who has been helping Stephen by skating backwards and holding both his hands and trying to coax him into the basic skating technique rather than picking up his feet like a walk, smiles at the girls as they overtake him, now racing around the rink chasing the oldest boy, Tony.

“I’ll make a coach out of you yet,” she calls in Halley’s direction, making the girl roll her eyes without slowing down.

Even with their slow stride, May and Daniel still manage to gradually overtake Daisy, who is skating along with Sophie and holding one of her hands while the girl clings to the wall with the other, still too cautious to let go.

“Good job, Sophie. You’re doing great!” May encourages.

The curly-haired girl has a focused look on her face, but the fact that she’s out on the ice at all speaks volumes of how much her confidence has grown since their last field trip here, when her first spill had spooked her so badly that she’d spent the rest of their time in the rink sitting stoically in the bleachers with her mother while May and Daisy helped the rest of the children skate.

Even with their growing confidence, the younger kids still get tired of skating fairly quickly, so Daisy takes Sophie and Stephen to get hot chocolate while the older four continue skating with May. They all eventually come off the ice for a snack break a little while later, and Daisy makes sure everyone’s had equal access to packs of peanut butter crackers and the bag of apple slices she brought before distributing more hot chocolate.

“How are your old knees holding up?” she murmurs when she has a chance to sidle up to May and offer her a thermos of hot tea (May still wouldn’t drink hot chocolate with a gun to her head…).

“They’re not that old, and they’re just fine,” May says, barely tickling Daisy’s side with the arm that’s wrapped around her waist. “Sure I’ll be plenty sore tomorrow anyway.”

“What?” Daisy asks with mock surprise. “Ice skating uses different muscle groups than butt-kicking? I had no idea.”

“I know you’re only saying it because there are children present,” May says, turning to Daisy with a smirk, “but it still sounds ridiculous to hear you use ‘butt’ in a sentence.”

“You try un-teaching a few kids a four-letter word you accidentally yelled when you burned your hand while cooking dinner,” Daisy challenges her with a very knowing look. “And failing miserably, and then having to explain it to all their parents when they come to get their kids…”

“I don’t envy the experience,” May agrees with a shake of her head. “Though I’m loving the mental image of these kids dancing around yelling any of the words I’m imagining.”

“Aunt May,” Andrea interrupts, surfacing from her intense conversation with the other two girls. “Sophie doesn’t believe that you can really skate on one foot, but we know you can. Can you show her?”

Daisy smiles sideways at May. “Duty calls. Hope your knees don’t mind.”

May is perfectly indulgent of anything the kids want on most days anyway, so it takes almost no goading from Halley and Andrea before May is back out on the ice, and Tony, Andrea, Sophie, and even Stephen crowd up to the safety glass barrier to watch as she skates to the center of the rink and begins a sequence of her favorite tricks.

Halley, for whom the performance is all a rerun, hangs back continuing to much on the snack options, and Daisy seizes her moment to sit down beside her and ask the question she’s been waiting to ask for weeks but certainly needs to ask before the imminent holiday this Monday.

“Are you glad May is with us?”

“Of course,” Halley shrugs, slurping from her juice box. “Who else would teach us to skate?”

Daisy smirks. “I’d be teaching you, of course. By paying for lessons.”

“But this is better,” Halley said with a smirk and a nod. “May is so much cooler.”

Daisy glances at the center of the rink where May is executing a flawless twirl that Daisy doesn’t know the name of. But she has years to learn…if Halley says yes…

“How would you feel about May being with us forever?”

Her daughter looks up at her, chomping down on another apple wedge. “Isn’t that already the plan?” she asks around a full mouth, apparently unflustered, and the certainty in her tone makes Daisy wonder how many visitors from the future have already clued Halley in as to what happens to her family next.

“Well, I was hoping it could be,” Daisy says, smiling nervously. “I love her a lot, and I know she loves both you and me too. I think she wants to be in both of our lives for a long time, and if she and I got married, we could make that official. But…what do you think of it? What if she was your other mom?”

Finally, she seems to capture Halley’s full attention. “What do you mean?” She cocks her head, her brown eyes nervous.

Daisy takes a deep breath, her fingers twining together nervously beneath the table. “Well, I have lots of love to give you, but so does she. We could be your moms together, and then you’d have double the attention and double the love. I’ve always been a little sad that you only have one parent.”

_Still one more parent than what I grew up with, but I always wanted better for you…_

Halley shrugs, the nervousness disappearing. “Well, I’m not. What could be better than me and you?”

Daisy smiles. “It’s hard to imagine that right now, isn’t it?” she agrees, slipping an arm around Halley’s shoulders. “But what how do you feel about the idea of us getting married again and all of us being a family of three?”

Halley shrugs again, gesturing at the rink and the children between her and May. “She’s already like my mom and their aunt. And you were married before…How would it be different if you got married again?”

Daisy hesitates, not sure if now is the time to explain legal things like spousal rights and tax benefits and the possibility of adoption…

“May and I did things very out of order before,” she eventually says truthfully. “I kind of want a chance to do things like most people do. Including having a wedding that all our friends and family can come to.”

Halley looks up with a smile. “If you have a wedding, can I be a flower girl?”

Daisy smiles, feeling her nervousness seeping away as she lets out a relieved chuckle. “Of course, if you want to be.”

“Can Andrea be one too?”

Daisy nods. “We can talk about it. But don’t say anything to anyone else yet. Not even May. I want to talk to her by myself first. And if she says yes, then we can tell everyone that we’re going to have a wedding.”

“Okay,” Halley agrees, swinging her legs over the picnic bench and tramping back to the entrance to the rink to skate some more. In the center, she skates fearlessly up to May and grabs her hand, giggling as May, though startled, easily spins her into a twirl.

Still at the bench, Daisy finally exhales.

_One scary conversation down, one still to go._

~

Daisy knew it was cliché to propose on Christmas morning, to do the thing with the ring under the tree and the surprise in front of everyone and catching the moment on video… Some part of her wanted Halley involved in the actual proposal, but at the same time, there were things Daisy wanted to be able to say to May when she asked her the big question, things Halley might not yet be old enough to hear, and she also didn’t want May to feel “ganged up on” by having more than one person staring at her, waiting for an answer.

So.

So after the cookies have been set out for Santa (even though Daisy knew for certain that Halley had quit believing long ago) and Halley has been tucked into bed in her new pajamas (this year’s Christmas Eve gift), Daisy puts on a quiet Christmas playlist and curls up next to May on the sofa while they each had a glass of wine. The rest of the house is dark, but the tree is still twinkling in the corner of the room, growing from a soil of presents that Daisy just put there, since she can’t trust Halley to not shake and feel all of the items leading up to Christmas Day. Even without Daisy’s powers, her daughter is still scarily good at guessing the contents of boxes and packages from touch alone. So even if Halley didn’t believe in a red-suited visitor coming down the chimney, Daisy still makes all the presents appear on Christmas Eve after Halley goes to bed.

This year, Halley is also getting the scooter she’s been asking for for months, so May has already helped Daisy put it together in their room before sneaking it quietly downstairs once they are certain that Halley is asleep. The silver body twinkles, reflecting the lights on the tree, and Daisy smiles as she settles down beneath May’s arm, letting out a sigh against her chest.

“I miss the days when Halley was only asking for a play-kitchen. The gifts only get more expensive from here on out.”

“What did she get last year?” May asks, sipping her wine after propping her feet up on the coffee table.

“She was going through a ‘vet’ phase, so she wanted a vet kit and any animal care books I would give her. Fitz and Jemma ended up giving her most of the kit. I got the books.

“How long did the phase last?”

“Not long enough for what that kit cost, but that’s nature of gifts for kids…” Daisy mutters.

They fell silent for a bit, with Daisy thinking slowly back through the Christmases she’d spent with her daughter—seven Christmases already. The first had been in the Playground, when Halley was only a month old and the only child in her team’s lives. Tony had been born before the next one, and then Sophie the year after, so that by Halley’s third Christmas, she was the oldest of a small pack of toddlers. Daisy had bought this house the year that Halley turned four, so this would be their fourth Christmas in it. Last year, it had just been the two of them with Laolao and Coulson, since all the other families had spent Christmas with their “other families”… This year would be their first Christmas to host everyone for the holiday.

But it would also be Daisy’s first Christmas _ever_ with May.

“You know this is our first Christmas together?” she wondered aloud, wondering if the same thought had already occurred to May.

“Not if you count London,” May said though, making Daisy look up at her smugly.

“When you fell in love with me?” she reminds May, and her wife smiles back before kissing her briefly.

“When I started to, anyway,” she agrees.

Daisy is still smiling as she returns to resting her head on May’s chest. “Well, I was actually referring to our first Christmas as a couple. Because we definitely weren’t a thing yet in London.”

“But we were together well before the next Christmas,” May says above her.

“But we didn’t spend it together. I was at the safehouse, and you were fighting back another faction of SHIELD.”

May hums, not sounding pleased by the memory. There’s an awkward silence, and Daisy has a feeling that they’re both remembering all that came after.

_Afterlife, Jiaying, a showdown on a ship…_

Daisy redirects them to the reason she brought this up.

“You said you were going to give me this ring at Christmas…” she says, looking up at May and lifting her hand, waving the ring that May had given her much later in the game, after deaths and breakups and events that gave her a daughter had parted them for a while.

May smiles at the ring but doesn’t meet Daisy’s eyes. “That was the plan,” she confirms.

“Were you going to propose?” Daisy asks cautiously. She had been afraid to ask it before, when she and May had their brief honeymoon before their even briefer wedding. It all started when Daisy had timidly asked if May would have married her if they’d had more time… and then May had shown her the ring she said she’d planned to give Daisy over a year before.

A proposal under any circumstances had already been more than Daisy could have hoped for. And yet she’d always wondered what might have been, if fate had been kinder…

“I was still trying to decide,” May tells her now, and though it’s not the answer Daisy hoped to hear, its genuineness makes her feel relieved. “It felt fast—we hadn’t been together a year yet—so fast that it almost felt reckless. But at the same time, I think I already knew that you were going to be in my life a long time…”

Daisy smiles against May’s chest, squeezing her in a gentle embrace. But then she makes herself sit up, set her glass on the table, and turn towards May to look her in the eye and give her the speech that she’s been practicing for days.

“You coming back was a gift I never thought I’d get, but something I never stopped hoping for. And through these past few months, getting to watch you with Halley, with everyone else…I never doubted that I still wanted to spend the rest of my life with you, but every day just makes me more excited about the thought of it.”

May’s brow is puckering as her feet lower to the floor and she sits up too, staring intensely at Daisy, so Daisy reaches into the pocket of her robe and pulls out the box she’s been hoping May hasn’t already noticed, looking at her hands as she finishes the speech…

“We did this before, out of order, like everything else in our life together. And maybe it isn’t really necessary to do this again, when we are technically still legally married, but I want you to know just how much you mean to me and how much I still want a future with you…”

Daisy opens the box, taking a deep breath.

“Melinda May, will you marry me...again?”

Daisy can’t exhale until May answers, so what is probably only a matter of seconds actually feels like a year. But then May smiles and answers with the same words Daisy once did,

“Yes, of course I will!”

And Daisy is able to pull in a breath, pull the ring from its box and put it on her finger, and then pull May into a long kiss soaked in relief. When they separate, May ducks her head to admire the ring, and Daisy explains the stones (jadeite and diamonds, the hardest and toughest of gems), though of course she doesn’t have to tell May about the significance of the shape (an asymmetrical trail from large to small, like a comet). May praises it and kisses her again, but when she meets Daisy’s eyes, she can tell there are more questions now.

“Are you saying you want to do another wedding?”

Daisy grins. “I would love to, if only so we could do it with friends and family, what we missed out on before.”

“I assume you already talked to Halley about this?” May says, glancing towards the Christmas tree, and Daisy nods quickly.

“She was on board. Wants to be a flower girl.”

May smiles. “Of course. I wonder what my mom will say when we see her tomorrow. You know that she always complained about not getting to throw me a wedding.”

Daisy smiles and leans in to wrap her arms around May again. “This can be your Christmas gift to her.”

Against her neck, May hums. “Perfect.”

Daisy turns and nuzzles her face into May’s hair. “Merry Christmas.”

May glances up with a smirk. “ _Marry_ Christmas.”

Daisy chuckles, leaning down to kiss her again. “I’ll take that.”

~

Halley wakes them up before the sun has risen the next morning.

The house is dim and plenty cold as the three of them stumble downstairs together, but Daisy left the tree glowing all night, so it shines welcomingly as they enter the living room. Halley squeals and rushes to her scooter, jumping up and down for joy before pulling it towards the middle of the room and climbing on.

“Won’t be easy on the rug—try the tile,” May calls, and Daisy scrunches her nose at her as Halley hauls the scooter to the kitchen.

“Why don’t you put on some coffee while you’re in there?” she calls, though she follows Halley in anyway.

She starts a pot of coffee while Halley rides circles around the kitchen island, saying ‘thank you’ a million times as she goes. Once the kettle is on too, Daisy catches Halley’s attention, pulling her close while Halley straddles the scooter.

“Last night, I asked May to marry me again. She said yes! So now you can tell everyone when they get here that we’re going to have another wedding.”

Halley grins. “And I get to be a flower girl?” she asks breathlessly.

Daisy bends to kiss her forehead, her heart so full she can barely breathe.

“Of course you can.”

The early morning passes in a flurry of gifts and thank-you hugs and kisses, and just after Daisy heads to the kitchen to start a proper breakfast, the doorbell rings. She leaves May and Halley to answer it, already knowing who it is. 

“Hi Mama!” she calls as Lian enters, a large canvas bag over one arm and the other holding a large covered pan. There are several wrapped presents visible out of the top of the bag, and Halley is on them as soon as the bag hits the floor.

“Did you bring them?” she asks breathlessly, rummaging through the packages even as Daisy tries to slow her down.

“Let’s wait until after breakfast, and then you can open Laolao’s presents…”

But Lian just smiles, setting her purse on the counter and pulling out a specific wrapped box. “Yes, this is the one you want, Halley,” she says, offering it to her.

Daisy looks confusedly at Lian as her daughter tears out of the room, calling for May, and Lian nods in the direction of the living room.

“I don’t think you can stop her from giving this now. But you probably want to see it.”

In the living room, Halley finds May sitting on the floor where she had been picking up the remains of their wrapping paper with Halley standing over her, pushing the box into her face.

“Open this now. Please please please please please…”

May gives Daisy a curious look as she crosses her legs, pulls down the package, and starts to unwrap it with a smile for Halley.

“Is this from you or from Laolao?”

“Laolao helped,” Halley admits. “But it’s from me.”

Beneath the bow and wrapping paper is a small garment box, and inside the tissue paper within is a manila envelope. May glances up at Halley, confused, but Halley just waves eagerly for her to continue.

“Open it!” she urges, looking like she might faint from excitement.

May opens the envelope and pulls out two pieces of paper, reading them silently for a few seconds before her face changes, and she looks up at Halley, her face slack with shock.

“Really?” she asks quietly, and Daisy doesn’t think she’s ever seen May give any child this look.

It’s not unlike the face she made when she saw the ring last night.

“Yeah,” Halley says, nodding. “Will you?”

May’s face breaks into a disbelieving smile. “I’d love to.”

Halley shrieks happily and leaps into May’s lap, giving her a hug that allows May to hide her face in Halley’s hair for a long moment, because when they finally part, there are tears in her eyes.

Daisy, who is still standing confusedly next to Lian, can’t bear the suspense any longer.

“Can I see, Halley?” she calls, and her daughter snatches the papers from May to run them over to her.

It’s two forms, partly filled in.

_The State of Virginia—Petition for Adoption._

**Author's Note:**

> "neither flesh of my flesh nor bone of my bone, but still miraculously my own."


End file.
